Groin Shot of the Week Candidates

Jake Plummer (499 Yd, 4 TD)
About the worst thing that could have happened to Reuben Droughns owners the prior week was for the Atlanta defense to give up a ridiculous 8 rushing TD and over 250 yards on the ground in an absolute drubbing at the hands of the Chiefs. What do you think the Falcons were going to concentrate on this week? Were they ready to respond after being down right embarrassed? Apparently so. It didn't help matters the "new and improved" Denver defense decided to sleep walk through this contest either. And the result for fantasy owners, Jake Plummer was winging the ball everywhere resulting in 499 yards and 4 TD. In his 7 prior seasons, Plummer has never thrown 20 or more TD, or 4,000 passing yards. This will help.

Peyton Manning (472 Yd, 5 TD)
Manning on the other hand, has thrown 20 or more TD in every one of his 6 prior seasons and passed over 4,000 yards every season except his rookie year. However, his career high in TD is 33. After 7 games he's now on pace for 50 this year. He will need to up his yards per game average slightly by 4.5 per game to get to 5,000 passing. What do you think about a player having a 5,000-50 stat line? That would be pretty cool. Well, at least cool for 1 out of every 12 of us reading or writing this article who slot him into their starting lineup every week. Not me.

Drew Brees (281 PaYd, 5 TD)
Brees didn't throw for over 400 yards like Plummer and Manning but the way the Chargers are playing, and how dismal the Raiders look, I have little doubt he would have hit the number if only they played on a larger field. Remember that long Philip Rivers holdout from training camp which pretty much ended any possibility of a QB competition? What a laugh at this point there even would be a competition. Brees has a couple other things going for him over Plummer and Manning with this result. He got his team in the win column as they are surging up while the Broncos and Colts are each on a two game losing streak. Plus, Brees is an unrestricted free agent after this season... Cha-ching!

FF In The Groin Mailbag

Strange but true! The Cardinals are the only team in the league not to have given up a rushing touchdown this season. So far they played against Marshall Faulk, Corey Dillon, Kevin Barlow, Deuce McAllister, Shaun Alexander, Michael Vick and Warrick Dunn and no rushing TDs. - R.

And the Bills had not scored a rushing TD. Until this week that is! Both good and bad, nothing lasts forever, as Boston fans have now found out once on each side in the past week.

Help Wanted

We're only halfway through the season and I am struggling with the witty banter today. It could be the sting of defeat from yesterday. Or it could be from consuming too much Halloween candy trying to overcome the sting of defeat. Or it could be from drinking myself into a stupor, choking down Halloween candy, grimacing at the horror show of two 1-5 teams starting backup QBs while listening to the endless blather of Paul McGuire and Joe Theisman on Sunday Night Football, and having Drew Bledsoe toss a 97-yard INT return for a TD in X-Box Madden on split screen, all while trying to overcome the sting of defeat. But I digress...

I was thinking we need to spice up this column a bit and make it more interactive. To do that I'm going to swipe The Late Show Top 10 list idea. We need a new list - preferably football related; preferably humorous - each week. And you're going to help me with it. Before next week, send me in candidates for your Top 10 Current TV Commercials Aired During Football Broadcasts. Include the product, description of the commercial, quote, punch line, etc. so I know what you're talking about. We'll see how many non-beer commercials make the list. The over/under line is set at 2.5. Plus send me other list ideas if you've got them.

Comments From The Couch

• Jabar Gaffney: How NOT to make every recap show and sports news "highlight" reel in the country.

• Love him or hate him, Terrell Owens is damn entertaining and certainly gives us something new to talk about all the time. The Ray Lewis dance - classic. The fact my first instinct I wanted Ray to go out and pummel him on the 2-point conversion right after is beside the point.

• I had my worst week in the Red Eye Masters league this week! But you know what, I am okay with it. I happened to be playing a team that started Trent Green, Shaun Alexander, Keyshawn Johnson, Johnnie Morton, Marcus Robinson, Rod Smith and Tony Gonzalez. That's 11 TDs and about a bazillion yards. It's safe to say no matter who I put in it was going to be a notch in the loss column.

• What I wasn't okay with, was the Thomas Jones injury after a single play. He was the primary reason I committed to watch that game in the first place but after he went out, on went the X-Box Madden in split screen, even though I had to sacrifice the full HD experience. Yes, the game was that bad.

• And that brings me to an HD clarification from last week. I mentioned I might as well cancel my Sunday Ticket because it isn't broadcast in HD. In fact, it is for most of you who get Sunday Ticket on DirecTV, but I'm just a dumb Canadian and we have no DirecTV up here. Well, some people do but don't tell the DirecTV folks.

• I should start picking winners and losers two weeks in advance for the office pick'em pool. This way I completely avoid any influence from the immediate prior week. Remember when there is a big upset one week that winning team is a great bet to outright lose the following week. Prime examples of week 7 world beaters that came back to earth - Bengals, Jaguars, Lions, Cardinals plus tonight's anticipated loser, Dolphins.

• The Vikings without Randy Moss quickly silenced the idea of Daunte Culpepper breaking Dan Marino's record for TDs in a season. And Moss actually suiting up each week but posting back-to-back goose eggs has certainly left Moss owners hanging out to dry. Head coach Mike Tice graduated from Mike Shanahan's coaching school of deception with magna cum laude honors. Don't believe a word he says!

• The Patriots were bound to lose sometime. Time for a new storybook tale for the media to grab hold of and likely beat to death for us. Enter Ben Roethlisberger stage left. Hey, I really like the kid and he has certainly been impressive through 5 games, but that is what the media does. Right now I see 6 different current articles linked from the ESPN.com homepage referring to Roe and the Steelers, and I'm sure I'm missing some.
  
  
• The great debate on LaDainian Tomlinson in the preseason was whether he can continue to put up numbers worthy of being the #1 overall fantasy pick on such a horrible team as the Chargers. The reality appears to be that LT is much better on a bad offensive team. Damn those Chargers for not reading their own preseason press.

• Holy crap, you know the quarterbacking is bad when, of all people, Joe "I think they should take a shot here" Theisman is saying, "they (Bears) should run it here and not risk a turnover." I couldn't believe it. Joe probably thinks Mike Martz runs too conservative an offense.

• I certainly would discuss the Bills non-debacle this week, if only the game hadn't been BLACKED OUT in my area! Argh!

And The Winner Is…

Well, we have to throw out Peyton Manning right away because the other two were virtually identical but came with a lot lower expectations. In a yardage league, Plummer probably more then made up for the extra TD for Brees. But, Plummer might have lost some fantasy points with the 3 INT. Plummer or Brees, Plummer or Brees. The winner is… Drew Brees! I just like him better as I've always thought he got more of the blame then he deserved for the Chargers troubles the past couple years.